


Interlude II

by Deannie



Series: The Silence In Between [4]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: The Silence In Between [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564306
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	Interlude II

_“Do not shrink from the truth, daughter.” Father’s hands were on her shoulders, and nine-year-old Hera Syndulla tried desperately to live up to his expectation for her, but… she couldn’t._

_“Hera!” he barked. “Open your eyes.”_

_Mother’s shroud was sheer and thin, her skin looking like fired clay beneath the whiteness, her lekku curled forward and hands folded in the traditional way. The way of the dead. One of so, so many on Ryloth._

_But none of the rest of them were her mother. Her mother, whose dress hid the laser scoring up and down her torso, while the sheer of the shroud did nothing to hide the damage to her arm, just above the hand, where the mortars from the Empire had ripped the skin away, showing bone._

_“Bones should be on the inside,” Hera whispered, unheard by her father. She approached the bier and he stayed behind. She reached out to the funeral veil—her grandmother’s veil from only two years ago. Would it be hers as well, before the war was over? Passed down from generation to generation to generation in so short a time?_

“Hera?”

_The veil gave way and slid down and there, as if she were only sleeping, was her mother. Still. Cold. Eyes closed, never to open again._

“Hera, are you okay?”

Hera shook herself as Kanan’s concern got through her thoughts. She blinked, looking down at him. _Do not shrink from the truth, daughter_. Kanan lay stretched out on his bed, bacta visor put to the side. The lightsaber burns were still brittle and black, an ugly slash across the most beautiful part of his face. His eyelids were barely there, fused closed and melted thin by the heat of a laser fueled by hate. Eyes closed, never to open again… She sighed with a shuddering sense of reliving history.

Except that Kanan was alive. He was alive and someday, Goddess and the Force and the Whims of Fate willing, his eyes would open again. She’d seen a glimpse of them during the initial medical exam, when the _Nyaga An_ returned. No turquoise peeking through the veil, no life. Never to see her, but someday to be seen.

His hand reached out, finding her face, rough human calluses sliding across smoothness and distracting her. His own face was growing more hair, his beard filling out, making him look older. She should shave that for him…

“I should get one of the medtechs to help with this,” he whispered regretfully—not for the first time—guilt for her inconvenience in his voice.

Hera cast aside her own trauma and focused. He _would not_ do this without her. “No, you shouldn’t.” She picked up the heavier wrap that Nidar had given him for his intensive treatments, checking the settings and bracing herself. “Are you ready?”

“Hey, all I have to do is lie here, right?” Kanan was trying as hard as he could to be nonchalant, but he’d never been able to fool her before. He shouldn’t have bothered to try now. Especially when she’d been there the first time this thing went on.

Was it really more than a week ago? That day when Kanan had made a decision that Hera wished he hadn’t. A decision he had every right to make that still made her rail against his selfishness.

“Kanan,” she tried, also not for the first time. “If you just reconsidered—”

“I know you don’t understand, Hera,” he said quietly—almost serene despite his obvious anxiety at the idea of donning the treatment wrap. “I’m not sure I really understand it myself but, trust me. This is the best option.” He slid his hand down her neck to her arm and down again until he found her hand and squeezed it. “For me.”

It was always the serenity that threw her. Their last real catastrophe had been Mustafar, and there had been nothing serene about her Jedi for _months_ after that. He’d been just as distant, just as self-centered then, but he hadn’t been at peace with the destruction the way he was now.

Although the first few days had been almost worse than the last time. There was no time in the bacta tank—no space for all of them to come to terms. Kanan had gone to his room and stayed there and Ezra had done a remarkable impression of Kanan after Mustafar, silent and hiding.

But then… Things had gotten better. With remarkable speed—at least for one of them. Ezra still kept to himself and Hera knew they’d have a reckoning there, but Kanan ventured into the common room their fourth day back, feeling his way along and growling at himself in frustration when he inevitably walked into something. Hera still wondered at that. Drunk, hurt, drugged: she’d never seen him _not_ graceful before. She’d even seen him fight without his sight (well, _seeing_ him fight wasn’t really how it was, but the nightvision sensors had picked up the whole thing). It was like actually being blinded had damaged some innate balance in him.

But as much as he griped and cursed and joked darkly about it, he kept coming out. Kept finding his way. He talked. Had meals with the rest of them. He adapted in that way that humans always did. But as much as he became adept at moving around the _Ghost_ , even after the _Nyaga An_ returned and Nidar took over caring for him, he never showed the least desire to leave the ship’s confines.

“We wouldn’t have to go out in the day, Kanan,” she’d said one night, after he’d actually mastered finding a jogan fruit drink for himself in the galley. “It’s dark now. No one will see.”

He’d found her hand with surprising accuracy and squeezed it, smiling. “I’m okay, Hera,” he promised her. “I just want a little more time to get used to things.”

Serene. Calm. Not like there was no fight left in him, but like the fight itself was just… over. Like Malachor had been the final chapter for him, whether he’d made it back alive or not.

Yes, this was disturbing in a whole other way than that hell after Mustafar had been.

The treatment wrap beeped, calling her attention.

“Better not keep it waiting.” Kanan’s serenity was slipping.

Taking a deep breath, Hera placed the wrap on his eyes, holding it there for a moment. The second the pulses started, she had both her hands in Kanan’s, squeezing in comfort. She kept hoping he’d adapt to this, too. But as always, the first minute or so was the worst. And then there were the other 59, which she knew wouldn’t be much better.

After about five of them, his hands relaxed slightly. “It’s fine. I’m good.” Hera felt that habitual bitterness at his dismissal.

But this wasn’t about her, was it?

“I’ll be back in—” she looked at her chrono— “fifty-four minutes.”

He snorted, and when he spoke, his voice was strained. He was _trying_. “Not a second too late.”

She kissed him lightly on the lips and rose. “I promise.”

******

Rex saw Zeb and Sabine heading for the commissary, and given the time of day, it wasn’t hard to figure out what they were running from. Nor where the rest of the crew would be.

Kanan’s treatments weren’t pleasant, obviously, but they seemed to be doing him some good. He’d heal. He was a Jedi. Not as resilient as clones, he thought with a dark chuckle, but resilient enough.

Because the invitation was a standing one, Rex entered the _Ghost,_ went to the galley and made a pot of caf, and then made himself comfortable in the common room, waiting for Hera to finish helping Kanan setup his latest treatment. She didn’t like them—nobody seemed to—and Rex figured, maybe, she’d want to talk after. And if she didn’t want to, he certainly did.

Dr. Nidar had taken a personal interest in Kanan’s case, and after the first big exam, she’d started making the short trip from the now fully staffed medical clinic to the _Ghost_ every day to check on his progress, so he had no need to show his face to the curious—what part of it you could see past the bandages. But Kanan’s situation was all over the base in record time, anyway. Tragically maimed. Blinded. Finished. Given that Kanan was already navigating the _Ghost_ well enough and at least sticking his nose into the doings outside the ship, Rex wasn’t betting on the “finished” part.

The pair of Jedi had been back from Malachor for two weeks now, and sure, Ezra was rarely seen beyond the _Ghost_ ’s common room, but Kanan was coming back. Sabine had told him that Ezra had even come out and eaten lunch with them all yesterday. The kid was taking all of it hard—and knowing Maul’s gift for manipulation, Rex figured there was a story behind his guilty eyes that they weren’t sharing.

But they’d been through hell before, and the two of them would adapt. Humans did. It was one of the many reasons the clones were patterned after a member of that species. Adaptability in war was key to survival.

The tragedy here wasn’t Kanan. It was the rest of the crew. Zeb and Sabine and Hera were trying desperately to go about their business, but it was a sham and they knew it. Hell, the last fighter Sabine had painted looked positively boring. Zeb didn’t even seem to be sleeping on the _Ghost_ these days, bunking with friends to give Ezra his space (and Rex _really_ questioned the wisdom of that move). Hera attended every staff meeting and helped make every decision on base, but without the fire she’d had before.

_“When a brother falls, it’s hard for the rest of the family to get back up.”_

Kanan was coming to terms, even if the rest of them were just treading water. Just like Rex himself knew he was doing nothing more than going through the motions. Three had gone out, but only two came back.

God, he missed her. Strangely, he missed her more now than he’d missed her after the _Venator_. More than he’d missed her when she left the Order, in fact. Kanan had explained the bare minimum of Ahsoka’s fight with Vader, but Ezra had gotten them out of there and into hyperspace so fast that they didn’t have any more information. And somehow, the fact that he didn’t _know_ was what was really killing him.

“She shoved Ezra away,” Kanan had explained, sitting still and sightless beside Hera at the dejarik table. He had turned his head slightly toward Ezra, who leaned in the corner by the ladder to the _Phantom_ , arms tight around his middle while trying to look inconspicuous. “To stop him from going back. The temple was closing, and he would’ve been trapped inside with them.”

Ezra looked like he wanted to say something but couldn’t come up with the words.

“She’d do that,” Rex muttered, undone by this in ways he hadn’t been undone by the rest of the many losses he’d had in his life. She’d _done_ that. Too many times for him to count. “As long as everyone else gets out, that’s all she cares about.”

“I’m sorry.” Ezra’s whisper was so quiet that it would have gone unheard in any other room. A room where everyone hadn’t all but stopped breathing.

It was the utter devastation in that single phrase that broke Rex’s composure. It had been years since he last cried over a fallen comrade—after his brothers had been slaughtered in the name of the Empire—but he found he could still shed a tear for her, now.

“The, um… the temple?” he asked after a long moment, clearing his throat viciously against more tears. “There’s no hope of something left?”

“We don’t know,” Kanan said quickly, as if jumping in before Ezra could say something. Not that the kid looked like he’d be able to speak again for a while. “The explosion was centered in the main hall, though. I’m sure you’ve see— I’m sure Chop has reviewed the footage with you.”

Chopper had. The shaft of light, blasting through the temple and into the sky…

“Damn it,” he whispered.

Kanan tipped his head down, and it was the first time Rex wished he could see the other man’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Rex.”

Rex was sorry, too. Sorry and undone and just… tired again.

“Oh, for a joopa to hunt,” he murmured.

“You’re not heading back to Seelos, I hope.” Hera’s words were flippant as she entered the common room, but her tone was anything but. Rex had an idea she couldn’t take much more loss at this point.

He smiled comfortingly, gesturing to the cup of caf he’d made for her. “Nothing there for me now, Captain,” he assured her. “The fight’s here.”

Hera sighed and slid onto the bench, sipping gratefully at the mug of steaming liquid. “Isn’t that the truth.” She shook herself, as if coming up with the energy to be civil. “Did you need something?”

He did. But now was not the time to talk about that. “Just checking on you,” he tried.

She knew he was lying, of course. “I’m not a crystal shard, Rex,” she assured him. “If you need something, I’m here.”

The exhaustion in her words reinforced the knowledge that she wasn’t’ ready for what he needed to tell her. “How’s Kanan?” he asked instead.

She gave him a long, measured look, but let it go. “The treatments are going well,” she said, trying hard to be positive. “Nidar says she thinks he’ll be ready for the tear duct implants in another week or two.”

There was a bitterness to her words. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

Hera shook her head, sipping the caf again to give herself strength to talk. “If he would get the _other_ implants, he wouldn’t have to go through all these treatments in the first place.”

“What other implants?” Rex asked, immediately answering his own question. “Eyes?” No. That’d never work. “Jedi don’t do that.”

Hera growled. “That’s what _he_ said.”

Rex leaned forward, suddenly seeing a piece of the puzzle that he could fit into place for her. He remembered more than one Jedi who’d lost an eye, or their hearing. Organs, even. “It’s a Force thing, Hera,” he told her seriously. “I don’t claim to understand it, but I don’t know of a single Jedi who lost an eye and got a cyber for it.”

She leaned back, still irritated, though a touch of understanding lit her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Ahsoka told me Anakin Skywalker had a replacement _hand._ ” She stumbled badly over Ahsoka’s name and frowned at him in apology.

“General Skywalker spent a month with the Force healers in the Temple, making sure he understood how to use the Force with it. ‘Extending the Force to complete the body,’ they called it.” He shook his head with a wry smirk. “I’m guessing Kanan didn’t explain any of this to you?” Though it was possible, Padawan that he was back then, that Kanan hadn’t learned any of that before it was all gone.

“No. He didn’t.” Hera put down her mug. “Honestly, he hasn’t explained much, Rex,” she admitted.

“It’s a lot to process, I’d wager,” he replied, trying to console her. Echo came to mind, with a pang of sadness that augmented what was already there. He’d dealt with his own maiming and imprisonment a hell of a lot better than Rex or anyone else had. “Injuries are expected in war. But when they’re permanent…”

Hera nodded and the two of them sat in silence for a long moment. “There’s a point where the fight doesn’t gain you anything anymore,” she murmured. “A point where you just… stop.”

Rex knew what she meant. He’d been there, though from the shock and pain in her voice, she never had. And he was willing to bet Kanan hadn’t, either—even after all that had happened, he was still here, right? “There is,” he agreed candidly. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.”

She gave him a look.

“Give him time,” he suggested. “Time and space and the right to make his own decisions.” He reached for the caf pot and poured her another cupful. “I can’t guarantee he’ll make the _right_ decisions, but…”

Hera finally grinned, and Rex was glad he’d come. “So, nothing’s changed, then?” she joked blackly. And then she looked right through him, and he was rethinking the whole visit again. “Now what did you _really_ come here to talk about?”

Damn.

“I _need_ to go to Malachor,” he told her. No nonsense. No question. Her eyes were wide and understanding. “It’s been two weeks, and I know there’s probably nothing there to find, but… I have to know.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to stay away if one of them was there,” she agreed. But she clearly didn’t want him to go. He wasn’t sure how he’d been adopted into this family, but she considered him hers, and he was thankful for it. “When will you leave?”

He leaned back, unaware until this moment that every muscle in his body had been clenched tight. “Soon as I can get Sato to give me a ship, I guess.” Hera opened her mouth and he immediately raised a hand. “You’re not taking me. You’ve got your own problems here.”

She could hardly argue with that, now could she?

**********

43.5 minutes.

Kanan had always had a clear and accurate sense of time, and while being blinded hadn’t made it better like Master Kenobi had suggested it might, it certainly hadn’t damaged it, either. 43.25 minutes until the current treatment was over and he could sit up and take off this kriffing mask.

He knew he was going to count every second.

It had been two weeks since they’d returned to Atollon, and for the last seven days of that time, Kanan had been seen daily by the _Nyaga An_ ’s premier doctor, Nidar of Judnadan.

Nidar was a Gwdonni female, a species that was closely related to the Nautolan, though taller and thinner as a rule, with webbed feet and hands. Unlike Master Fisto’s species, Gwdonni had little connection to the Force, so while Nautolans had extrasensory tentacles, Gwdonni tentacles were simply prehensile—useful both in and out of the waters of their home planets.

Kanan had only met Nidar once, when Hera had been injured in those first few months with Phoenix Squadron, but he could describe her in his mind: pale rose skin, large violet eyes; hairless with a long, soft face and darker rose tentacles that fanned out like thick, sentient braids from the back of her skull.

He could describe her, but he couldn’t picture her. Picturing anything was no longer something he could do with any regularity, and he would have worried about the deficit if he didn’t have so much else to worry about already.

Nidar was 135 years old, a brilliant doctor who had escaped an Imperial “recruitment” on her home planet and joined the rebellion near the very beginning. He was beyond lucky to have such a gifted healer looking after him. A gifted healer, but not a miracle worker. Still, Kanan was glad of her candor as well as her expertise.

“The eyes themselves are not reparable,” she’d told him bluntly at their first meeting. She had a deep, mellifluous voice that reminded him of the sea. “The insult of a lightsaber, the heat… There is nothing left of either cornea or lens. Without those, you have nothing.”

Which should have been crushing, but honestly, Kanan had known, the moment Maul’s saber screamed into his face and the world went red with pain, that there was nothing to be done.

Thankfully, Hera knew it, too. She’d stood beside the examination chair and squeezed his hand comfortingly, but there’d been no dashed hope to her dimly felt Force signature. Just a kind of capable resignation.

“We can certainly improve the look of it, though,” Nidar had continued, the metal rings that decorated her tentacles clacking together audibly as she talked. “The lids can be regenerated—that’s already happened to some extent, thanks to getting the bacta on so quickly—and we will need to surgically replace the lachrymal system, unless…”

Kanan had known what she was going to suggest. He just didn’t know quite how to respond.

“Unless?” Hera had echoed.

“While there appears to be some minor damage to the optic nerves, it’s not insurmountable. Cybernetic replacements are self-lubricating, so the tear duct system wouldn’t be necessary. Humans are generally ideal candidates for the procedure.”

He tried to block out Hera’s burst of optimism at the suggestion.

“Jedi aren’t,” he stated clearly, the response suddenly easy. Right. Final.

“Kanan…” Hera began.

“It isn’t an option.” It wasn’t.

Nidar was silent for a long moment, and Kanan wondered in his endless darkness what was going unsaid between the two women. But he knew, somehow, even as his connection to the Force frayed under the weight of what was happening, that Master Kimmanaka had had a reason for staying just the way he was.

“I understand,” Nidar said finally, though it was clear to Kanan, even without the Force, that Hera didn’t. “Then we will need to finish regenerating the lids before the lachrymal replacement. Sooner rather than later, I think.”

It turned out that regenerating his eyelids more rapidly required Kanan to lie perfectly still for an hour at a time, three times a day, with a specially designed mask on his eyes. Three hours of complete immobility. He couldn’t even try to combine the time with a proper healing trance because the mask was… distracting. But at least it wasn’t throwing him into a panic anymore.

“We use electrical pulsing to increase the effectiveness of the bacta,” Nidar explained, the first time she’d laid him out on a bed in the aid station and placed the contraption on his face. The added pressure hurt, but not any worse than it had _all_ hurt, there in the beginning. And it was only an hour at a time, right? “It’s been shown to halve recover time. We’ll just turn this on—"

With no warning, the crackling pulse of electricity, over and over, threw him a year into the past.

_“What do you see?” The Inquisitor’s voice was oily, the images Kanan could remember but could no longer see sliding along the sound of it._

_“I see you… growing more and more frustrated.”_

_“Perhaps you can help me with that.”_

“KANAN!”

Hera’s voice drew him back sharply, and Kanan hissed as the mask was hastily removed.

“I’m fine,” he gasped, sucking in air and slowing his racing heart. Fine. Here. Home. _Safe._ Hera was going to break a bone in his hand, squeezing like that, but he couldn’t stand to tell her to ease up.

“The current shouldn’t be that provoking.” Nidar’s voice held a wealth of confusion.

Kanan snorted, trying desperately to get a hold of himself. Fantastic. He was really going to be reduced to _this,_ again? “It isn’t the current, I’m just…”

_Useless._

“It was just surprising,” he lied. Maybe more _minimizing the problem_ than all-out lying. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Nidar’s compassion bled through the Force, regardless of her lack of connection to it. “We can simply take it slower?”

Kanan shook his head. He needed this part over. They all did. “No. Let’s get on with it.”

So now, three times a day—and in the safety of his own quarters—he gritted his teeth, endured the memories he couldn’t see, and counted the minutes.

33.75 minutes.

*********

34 minutes.

Ezra sat on his bunk, knees to his chin, and counted the minutes. And tried not to feel the anxiety in the cabin next door.

Not that he could hope to deflect it, of course. It was like a music link played at max volume, over and over. _Everything_ seemed sharper and louder and _more_ now, like his connection to the Force had been tripled overnight. And the shields he’d learned over the last two years didn’t seem to apply to his master anymore. Meanwhile, Kanan’s own wall against him was full of holes and bleeding pain, and Ezra’s guilt grew every single time it touched him.

He should have left. He should have gone to the commissary with Sabine and Zeb—their latest excuse for being somewhere else. Somewhere where this wasn’t happening. He should be anywhere but here, feeling the pain that Kanan clearly had no desire to share.

_“Can you do me a favor?” Ezra remembered whispering, watching Kanan fight against his fear while Ezra was being consumed whole by his own. Kanan had tried to protect his Padawan from it, but there was no hiding a terror that big. Like there was no hiding this. Force, it was months ago, and still they were playing the same game._

_“Anything.” Kanan had really thought he meant it. He always did._

_“No more secrets,” Ezra had begged. “Just… no more walls, okay?” His clenched fist hurt all the way to his shoulder. “Trying to protect me hasn’t helped us yet.”_

_“No,” Kanan murmured. “No, it hasn’t.”_

Staring across the room at Sabine’s painting of him and Zeb (that Kanan would never see again), Ezra realized the pain in his arm was more than a memory. Without the bacta cast, his broken arm hadn’t really healed, and he had his arms wrapped so tight around his knees that the bone ached and burned.

It was only a hairline fracture. It hadn’t even swelled as much as he thought it would. The doctor had said it could have healed on its own, eventually, though maybe not completely right. And it didn’t matter. Who cared if it healed right or not? He wasn’t going to need it for Jedi business—Kanan had clearly made the decision to shut him out again. Permanently, probably.

**_“He strives to deny you the power you deserve. The insight.”_ **

The whisper wasn’t even a surprise. In the dim light, he could see the holocron’s red glow through the eye screens of one of his helmets on the shelf below. A part of him knew he should worry that he rarely remembered activating it anymore, but that part was tired of fighting.

That first day, when they’d finally come home to find that Malachor had broken everyone, Ezra had opened it without thinking and answered its question as if he were talking to a friend.

**_“Then let us begin…”_ **

And then he’d dropped it like it was on fire and spent an hour trying to calm down. It was a _Sith_ holocron, after all. It was dangerous. Wrong. Even if it held the answers they needed, it wasn’t worth the risk…

But the whispers continued. They continued, and Kanan’s wall stood in mute anger and the rest of the crew was silent and afraid—Zeb didn’t even come back to the cabin anymore. Probably didn’t know what to say about Ezra’s screw-up.… Rex walked around like he’s lost a chunk he couldn’t spare…

And Ezra had to connect with someone.

“He’s in pain,” he argued with it absently now, the red light making Sabine’s cartoon glow strangely. “He’s trying to protect me.”

**_“He protects himself.”_ **

Okay, so he couldn’t argue with that.

“He _should_ protect himself,” Ezra murmured coldly. Now his cartoon self looked menacing. “It’s not like I’ve done a great job of it.”

 **_“Your power could be great enough to protect_ ** **all _of your friends. If you would let go.”_**

Let go—yeah, that was a good way to go under permanently. The flood of _sensations_ , since Malachor, had been almost impossible for him to rise above as it was. He was already tired of fighting the tide. But to let go…

**_“You must break your chains.”_ **

Ezra’s arms tightened further and the pain of his broken bone—just for a minute—drowned out the voice and the Force and everything but itself.

Because he knew the holocron was like Maul. He knew it wasn’t safe. He knew it wouldn’t tell him the truth.

**_“And does your master?”_ **

*********

Zeb finished his meal and leaned back, sighing as he watched Sabine push her food around the plate. Delaying the inevitable. He didn’t blame her.

The _Ghost_ was getting to be a harder and harder place to live. He bunked in with Kinner these days, but he still _lived_ there. It was just that Ezra’s depression was oppressive and he didn’t know what the hell to say to the kid to get him to stop feeling guilty about drek he couldn’t fix.

Zeb knew that, eventually, Kanan and Ezra would come out of it—they’d all lost people and been through hell before. Wasn’t like they all didn’t know the drill—but this was different.

Kanan’s blindness was something they couldn’t just “get over” and get back to normal from. The Jedi hadn’t exactly bounced back from the Inquisitor’s torture, but after a while, he’d recovered fully. He could do his duty, even if it did sort of change into something less rebel and more counselor. This time, Zeb wasn’t even sure what Kanan’s duty could mutate into—or whether it would fit into what the rebellion needed from him.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Sabine asked out of the blue.

Zeb shrugged. Something about the treatments was a bigger part of the problem than Zeb was privy to. It wasn’t his place to ask, but he‘d seen Kanan go through some pretty incredible pain in their time together, and it wasn’t that the treatments were painful. At least not physically. But at least they seemed to be working. “Hera said the treatments are going okay. Shouldn’t be too long before he gets… as good as he gets.”

“I’m not talking about that, Zeb,” she snapped, without her usual annoyance—as if that was more energy than she could work up to. “How long until he leaves.”

That gained her a snort. “Kanan’s not leaving, Sabine,” he told her bluntly. “He couldn’t leave if he wanted to. He and Hera are bound in a way I’ve never seen two beings bound.” He gestured to the order droid, who started rolling its way over to them. He needed a drink if they were going to delay going back until after the treatment was done. “And then there’s Ezra.”

Sabine barked a bitter laughter. “Ezra isn’t even here anymore.” She shoved the plate still full of food toward the approaching droid, who dutifully grabbed it and stuck it in its recycler. “He’s stuck on Malachor.”

Which wasn’t far from the truth, but also wasn’t permanent. “Did you forget Tarkin suddenly?” he asked, hoping the sharpness of his comment would help shake her out of her funk. “Kid was hardly sunshine after that, was he? Kanan neither.”

She shook her head. “This feels different.”

“This _is_ different,” he told her. “But they aren’t.” He ordered his drink; watched Sabine quietly do the same. “They’ll come back from it, Sabine. Just wait.”

Though how long they’d have to, was anyone’s guess.

********

The intense relief of having the treatment wrap off was something Kanan always had to take a few minutes to get his head around. But he did. Because he had to. And then he cleaned himself up, put on his best face (or the best one he could with his standard bacta visor on), and made his appearance in the common room.

They needed to know that he was okay. Memories of those incredibly dark times after Mustafar were always with him now, and he wasn’t going to do that to them again. And honestly, he didn’t _feel_ this the same way at all.

There was pain, both physical and mental. He missed his sight, missed his grace, missed himself. But there was no terror now. No guilt for his choices—the ones he’d made on Malachor, at least. There was no sense of the world around him hurtling out of control.

Because there was no control.

 _He who seeks to control his fate will never find peace._ He couldn’t regain his sight. He couldn’t regain his place as the leader of this crew—wasn’t sure it was the time for that, anyway. When they were a random rebel cell, deviling the Empire on Lothal… _that_ had been his time. Now it was Hera’s turn.

Hera and Ezra and those who could do what needed to be done, _they_ were the future. Where he would fit into it, he didn’t know, but he knew he had to recover before he could find that out. And for him to recover, the others had to move on.

He tried to feel the world beyond his door, worried for a moment when it was all unclear. That would improve. He knew it would. Well, he hoped it would. He remembered Depa commenting on “finding her place in the Force again” after six months in a coma. He supposed this was the same.

Well, he hoped it was.

Taking a deep breath, he slid back into the serenity that he clung to and opened the door.

The hallway was empty, but he could hear quiet murmurs from the common room. When Hera had come back to take off the intensive wrap, she’d mentioned that Rex was here for midday meal. Kanan knew that, eventually, he and Ezra were going to have to explain about Master Skywalker, but Rex just wasn’t ready for it.

Kanan wasn’t sure _he_ was ready for it, either. Ezra certainly wasn’t.

Ezra was a faint presence in his own cabin, his emotions dimmed. Kanan should go to him, but Ezra had made it clear without saying it that he needed space, and after what had happened to Ahsoka, after what Ezra had no doubt _seen_ , Kanan was willing to give it to him. He turned toward the murmurs, successfully reaching the common room and hoping Ezra would join them. Later.

“It’s about time. I’m starving!” Rex’s exclamation rang false, but the concern and friendship in the tone didn’t, and Kanan smiled gratefully as he slid a hand along the wall and found his spot on the bench. The spot nearest the door was always open for him now, and he appreciated his friends’ thoughtfulness. His ability to find his way around the _Ghost_ without breaking fingers and cracking kneecaps was increasing daily. He wasn’t ready to go wandering the base, but he could move around without help, and that gave him the illusion that, someday, he might actually get back to feeling the world around him the way he had when he was a child and that blast visor was over his face.

He could smell the unique smell that was Hera—like lonna blooms and summer heat—to the side of him, and true to his estimation, he heard her slide closer, and felt her thigh lightly touch his, grounding him.

Knowing the drill, he put a hand out onto the table and felt carefully for the plate with the douba pocket he knew would be there waiting. He should get back to trying a fork or a spoon soon—even a knife—but for now, the small meat-filled pockets of bread were easy to eat without embarrassing himself too much.

“How did the meeting go this morning?” he asked. Again, it was a pattern. He hadn’t attended a status meeting with Sato since he came back, but Hera was expected to go to them and hadn’t missed one yet.

“Rumor has it that Governor Pryce is returning to Lothal,” Hera announced with a sigh.

“So we can expect an increase in military goods coming out of the factories there,” Rex put in. “We’re going to have to hit Lothal soon, or risk being overrun with TIEs.”

“The rebellion is going to need a lot more firepower to do that,” Kanan offered. “I don’t think you guys are up to taking on the governor and her no-doubt hefty entourage.”

Hera hesitated a second, but Kanan couldn’t figure out the reason. “No, we can’t,” she agreed after a moment, her emphasis on _we_. “But we might have help coming. The rebellion is growing faster than even Senator Organa thought it would. And with Mon Mothma’s calls for reform hitting resistance from the Emperor, more and more systems are getting restless.”

“Senator Mothma’s going to get herself run out of Coruscant,” Rex griped. “Or disappeared altogether.”

Someone was in the cargo hold, and it took a moment for Kanan to recognize Zeb’s claws and Sabine’s boots.

Not drawing their attention to the approaching crew, he nodded, finishing the last of his food and reaching forward to find the cup he was sure was there. Hera’s hand bumped his and guided him to it. “That might be the safest choice for her,” he said quietly. “Just disappear for a while.”

“Who’s disappearing for a while?” Zeb asked as he walked in. Kanan listened carefully to figure out where Sabine had gone. Over by the computer banks… He heard the chair there squeak as she sat down carefully. Zeb stayed standing just inside the door.

“Actually…” Rex’s voice was hesitant, and Kanan leaned forward. What was going on now?

“Rex?” Sabine led. She sounded stressed and sad and angry and Kanan figured they probably needed to talk. She had made herself scarce or kept silent most of the time since he and Ezra had been back—

—speaking of, Ezra’s door swished open and Kanan latched onto his apprentice’s Force signature. Dull and hard-to-read, but Ezra was there.

He was there.

“Look, I…” Rex clearly didn’t have a clue how to say what he needed to say.

Ezra walked up behind Zeb almost silently, and Kanan clearly heard the swish of his flight suit sliding on the wall as he leaned on the door jamb.

“You’re going to Malachor.” Ezra’s voice was flat and guilty and Kanan sighed inwardly at the pain there, even as he marveled at Ezra’s insight.

“I have to, kid,” Rex said, his own sadness softening his tone. “I have to know.”

Zeb’s feet shifted and the fur on his arms and chest made a shush-shush as he… crossed his arms? “Need some company?” he asked gruffly.

There was a smile in Rex’s voice now. “Thanks, but… This is something I’ve got to do on my own.” There was a pause. “You understand?”

Kanan wasn’t sure whose permission Rex was asking for, but the sound of Ezra’s flight suit against the door jamb sounded like a shrug.

“We understand, Rex,” Hera answered for them all.

“Are we sure it’s safe to go there?” Sabine asked practically. “I mean, Vader was just there.”

Kanan felt a clear spike of fear from Ezra.

“We’ve had word from one of our agents that Vader returned to Mustafar about the same time Kanan and Ezra got back here,” Rex replied, sounding glad to answer an easy question. His voice dropped. “Means he didn’t think there was anything there worth staying for.”

“Or he was too injured not to run home,” Zeb put in. His tone said he was desperate to make Rex’s outlook a little more positive.

Rex snorted, but he did sound brighter when he spoke again. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

It was a clone thing. Kanan didn’t know if they’d all had resilience programmed into them, or whether the war had done the job, but every clone he’d ever met had the ability to just roll with the punches and come up fighting. Rex more than any other.

Kanan wished for that kind of resilience now.

“When are you leaving?” Ezra asked quietly.

“Um… tomorrow, I think,” Rex replied. “Sato said he’d get me a ship.”

Ezra pushed off from his lounging site and Kanan couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but it was a long moment before his Padawan retraced his steps and headed for his quarters.

“Well, that went well,” Rex murmured wryly.

“He still feels like he left her,” Hera explained. “He knows he couldn’t have done anything to stop her, but…”

“No,” Rex agreed with a fond tone. “Once Ahsoka Tano sets her mind to something, there’s not much you can do.” The old clone’s armor rustled against his seat and creaked a little as he rose. “Anyway, I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. No matter what I find.”

Kanan nodded and reached out a hand as he heard Rex walked past him. His aim was good and his hand splayed out across the armor’s chestplate. It hadn’t been easy to see the scratches and pitting there, but he could feel them clearly now. “Good luck,” he offered. “No matter what you find.” He didn’t say “May the Force be with you.” That had been Rex’s last words to Ahsoka, and he wouldn’t make him relive it.

Not with what Kanan knew he’d find on Malachor.

The room was silent as Kanan’s ears traced Rex’s exit from the ship and his crew’s restless motions. Zeb took the seat on the bench that Rex had vacated, and Sabine rolled her chair closer.

“That’s not going to go well,” Sabine said. Kanan tried to think if he’d heard her utter a positive word since they’d come back.

“He needs to see for himself,” he argued gently. There was a weird ripple of unease in the room and he sighed in exasperation. “It’s just a word, guys.”

The silence was bad enough that he was deaf _and_ blind for a moment.

“Yeah, well,” Zeb grumbled. “Don’t expect us all to go using it again any time soon, all right?”

Hera’s hand was on Kanan’s knee suddenly and he reveled in the touch. “We’re making adjustments, remember?” she reminded them all gently.

“And that’s going to take some adjusting to,” Sabine murmured. There might have been a _shadow_ of amusement in her voice. Kanan hoped he wasn’t imagining it.

Speaking of imagining, it might be the time to put to the test one of the things he’d been distracting himself with while he had his latest treatment.

“So what do you think, Zeb?” he asked brightly. “Are you up for a game?”

Again, the deafening silence.

“Of dejarik?”

“I don’t think kittar ball would go so well right now,” Kanan joked, trying not to sound like he was trying too hard. “So yeah, dejarik.” He could feel the skepticism from Zeb, the shock from Sabine, and the… pride? …from Hera. Maybe his place in the Force wasn’t that far off after all. “As long as someone sticks around to make sure you don’t cheat…”

Zeb spluttered and Sabine’s chair scratched along the floor, closer to the table.

“Oh, I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” she promised. There was definitely something more positive in that.

Hera slid her hand up to his hand, lacing her fingers through his. “We both will.”

Kanan heard the click as the board was activated and felt the slight tingle of electricity as the game initialized. The trick was going to be… a trick.

One of the _many_ things a Jedi was trained in was concentration. Keep track of your surroundings and even that which you do not expect, you will expect. He’d just keep all his concentration on the game—where everything was. Picture… Okay, so picturing wasn’t going to work, but… _know_ where everything was and go from there. It was going to be more like counting cards in sabacc, but he could do it. Right?

*******

Hera’s hand stayed in Kanan’s throughout the depressingly short game.

She could tell he was trying hard to keep track of each piece, but apparently being able to see the board was far more important than it already seemed to be. When Zeb’s grimtaash took out Kanan’s ng’ok, ending battle in less than 15 moves, there was a long moment of utter silence. Zeb was normally one to brag over a win, but not when it was so clear that he’d won because of Kanan’s infirmity.

“Harder than I thought,” Kanan murmured, trying not to sound disappointed. Hera squeezed his fingers comfortingly—she’d been proud of him for suggesting it. She’d thought it was a step toward… Normal? As normal as they were likely to get? Now she worried that he’d just back right down and not touch the game again.

“Let’s go again,” Kanan said, squeezing her hand back and giving her a smile.

“Kanan…” Zeb’s ears were curling in embarrassment, but Hera was glad to see Sabine understanding the importance of this. Kanan wanted to succeed. He wanted to get better.

He wanted to come back. Maybe he wasn’t totally out of the fight after all.

“How about I give it a try?” Sabine asked, catching Hera’s eye and smiling. She was nowhere near the player Zeb was. But she had a lot more patience.

Kanan smiled. “Reset the board and let’s see how you do.”

Hera grinned quietly when no one flinched at his choice of words.

*******

_“Kanan, it’s him!”_

_“I know! I got you!”_

_“Ahsoka! Come on, hurry!”_

**_“Ahsoka.”_ **

_Her eyes were so wide… so hurt…_

_“Anakin?”_

A loud tap at the door jarred Ezra from his memories.

“Um, yeah? Come in.” He stumbled over his words and slid down from his bunk to stand awkwardly near the middle of the room.

He was mildly surprised to see Kanan at the door. Apparently the exercises the voice had suggested really were helping block the older man’s emotions. When he looked at him now, Kanan just looked… calm.

“Hey,” Kanan said quietly, stepping into the room with his hand out, hoping not to trip or run into anything. He was getting better at the run between his cabin and the common area, and he had the dash from cabin to ‘fresher down pat, but Ezra hurt every time Kanan tried to navigate some other space. He shouldn’t have to be working that hard.

“Just thought I’d check on you.” Kanan slid a hand across the cabinet face and then leaned against it. “Rex’s announcement must have come as a shock.”

Ezra sank down on Zeb’s bunk. “He needs to go, I guess,” he offered. “To s… To know for himself.” _To see what I let happen._

“Ezra, you couldn’t have stopped her,” Kanan said quietly.

“I know,” Ezra cut him off. _But I_ could _have stopped her. That’s the problem. I should have been able to, and you know it._ The silence stretched between them. _It’s my fault she was in that position in the first place. Mine and Maul’s._

“Ahsoka sacrificed herself so you could escape,” Kanan continued. “She’d want you to honor that sacrifice by continuing the fight.”

 _Like you are?_ Ezra thought, though he kept his mouth shut. Kanan did nothing all day. Between the treatments that amounted to torture, he meditated and sat in his cabin and did nothing. _He_ wasn’t fighting. Why should Ezra?

“I just… need a little time,” he said, throwing Kanan’s words back in his face.

“I get you.” Kanan sounded like the _old_ Kanan for a minute. The Kanan who believed in him.

_“Are you EVER going to trust me to think for myself!?”_

“Look, whatever Rex finds, we’ll deal with it,” Kanan promised. He pushed away from the cabinet a little unsteadily and tried to get his bearings. He looked tired, and Ezra almost asked if he was okay, but didn’t.

Why ask the question when you already know the answer, right?

“Yeah,” he replied, because he knew he was supposed to. “We’ll deal with it.”

Kanan nodded to him and trailed one hand along the wall, the other in front of him to look for obstacles. Ezra watched, unbreathing, until the door swished shut between the two of them.

 _Are you okay, Kanan? Really?_ Silence met his silence. He should have asked.

_I’m sorry._

*******

Rex came out of hyperspace with every sense—and every ship’s sensor—on high alert, but he needn’t have bothered.

Malachor was a cold gray ball, paired with its sister planets, who were equally cold and gray. The trio orbited a central point in the middle distance from their dying star. In just a few thousand years, this whole system would be gone, sucked up in the explosion as the star blew itself out.

“Good riddance,” Rex murmured as he approached. He set the sensors to sweep the planet, and his mind wandered...

_“I could be there in two rotations.”_

_“You don’t exactly outrank me anymore.”_

_“In my book, experience outranks everything.”_

_“Then I definitely outrank you.”_

The sensors beeped as he made a close sweep of the atmosphere, and Rex sighed. No life. No energy readings at all. Ahsoka’s braces would have given off something. Her comms…

He closed his eyes and entered the atmosphere.

If she was alive, she’d be here. Stuck. Surely if Vader had captured her, that would have been news _somewhere_ in the rebellion’s list of contacts, right?

He headed for the coordinates that the _Phantom’s_ databanks had given him. In the brittle featureless crust of the planet lay the gaping hole he’d seen in Chopper’s video record—big enough to fly the _Ghost_ through and then some. He couldn’t see what was below it until he was nearly inside it, and when he was, his heart sank.

Whatever the temple had once looked like, it was rubble now. The blast had been centered at the apex of the pyramid, but it wreaked more havoc than that. By his calculation, the upper third of the structure was just… gone.

“Somehow Vader survived,” he reminded himself, flying closer still, under the outer crust of the planet. Chopper’s images of the temple had shown a deep red glow—like it was lit by red blades—but the stone (if it was stone) was black and dead now…

Dead.

“Kriff.”

One last desperate chance. He set the sensors to do a deep sweep as he flew. All the way across the skrogging place.

_“So I… guess this is it?”_

_Ahsoka had still been shaking. Standing there in the middle of a backwater port, her sabers gone, stripped bare by what they’d done and seen. God, she was so young!_

_“Keep your head up and your eyes open,” he counseled. He felt stripped bare himself, but… There was nothing he could do about that._

_“May the Force be with you,” she said, reaching out to clasp arms with him._

_It sounded too final. Too permanent._

_“Until we see each other again,” he said instead. And then Ahsoka Tano walked off into the brand-new Empire. Without him._

The sensors beeped to get his attention and Rex almost ignored them. He knew what they’d say, and he didn’t want to see it.

**Life signs: negative  
Power signatures: negative**

Dead world.

Rex had attended too damned many funerals in his life. Jedi went to the Force in a blast of light, clones were buried where they fell, scattered across the worlds of the galaxy.

“Trust you to forge your own path,” he whispered.

There was nothing here for him. He had his answer. He headed out of the crust, slipping back into the atmosphere and headed for space. For home.

He took one last look before the glow of hyperspace took him.

“Until we see each other again, Commander.”

******

tbc


End file.
